Xethik finally posting once again. I was hoping to have a ton of free time this past week, but work and other things kept me busy, though I did manage to get time to do a bit of painting. With the new codex on the horizon and plenty about in the rumor mills, it's about time for a bit of discussion. This will be a bit of a three-sectioned post, but I will try to keep it brief. I'm going to cover the recent psychic power rumor, post a couple pictures of my newest Knight, and finish off with a bit of discussion relating to some speculation Fritz posted about here.So, to start off, let's talk about the recent rumors about. Coming from Blood of Kittens once again, the rumor was worded like this.

"The Grey Knights are getting a new unit or they are getting an upgrade that causes an automatic hit to any enemy model in base-to-base with them. This hit wounds on a 4+ regardless of enemies toughness with normal saves allowed and occurs before ALL attacks (think old mandiblasters), but still adds to combat resolution at the end of combat."

To many of us Grey Knight players, this sounds like an update to Holocaust. Obviously, this is an ability that is on the opposite side of the spectrum from what we expect with Grey Knight close-combat in the new codex- killing elite units with Force Weapon attacks. And by elite, I mean anything equivalent to a standard Toughness 4, 3+ Armor Save Marine. This power is going more hurt the horde-type opponents, though wounding on a 4+ means it is wounding T3 and T8 equally, so it has its uses against those big units, too. Something very cool that will help keep those Orks and gaunts away, but it isn't game breaking.
In response, someone who is known as Katie Drake posted this:

"The power mentioned is (I think) the new Holocaust. How I was told that it works is as follows:

Lets say we have a unit of 20 Gaunts charging some Grey Knights. One of the Knights has the Holocaust power. After assault moves are done but before attacks are resolved, the Grey Knight passes his psychic test to use Holocaust. Each model in the enemy unit is hit once by an attack that always wounds on a 4+ and allows normal armor saves. What that basically means is that before anyone gets to swing, the Knights can blow through half of a unit that has a poor armor save. In the above example, we're looking at 9 dead Gaunts most likely - and that's before the Knights attack."

So, this is just a bit of reinforcement onto the rumor. The power definitely seems like Holocaust, and everything here seems logical
Relatedly, Katie Drake also mentioned that Hammerhand will increase the strength of the unit by one in the assault phase, bringing the higher Strength factor back in. What units will have this and what opportunities lost remains to be seen, but I'm excited to see what GW does with this. It could really make or break the skill portion of the army.

Now, as I'm sure all of you care, I almost painted up an entire Terminator. Almost, but not quite. I have to pick up some paints for the weapon and paint the book at his waist which I was hoping to remove the arm before painting.

Just as some thoughts before I post up the pictures, I was decently happy with the painting. I definitely sprayed on a bit too thick and lost some of the details of the runes, but hopefully next time I won't have that issue. I also followed the Back to Basic guide by Ron in order to paint this guy up, but watered my paints with an about 1:1 on the basecoast and then a 2:1 paint:water on the highlights. Other than that, it was nearly identical. The stippling worked out nice, especially with the watered down paints, as it spread a bit after leaving the brush, causing a bit of a faded effect if looked at closely.

In the future, I'm definitely going to paint with the arms off. All of my minis were assembled when I bought them, so I never bothered taking them apart when painting, but I definitely realized I really have to with these guys. Reaching the runes under his halberd arm was just impossible to do with the required delicacy, and that was a bit upsetting. Also, I realized I'm absolutely garbage at free-hand. I had a very nice looking heraldry background painted, a very clean red and then bordered perfectly by white. Then I tried to paint a sword in Chaos Black and it was.. so bad. I tried painting over it with red and white again and starting over, but things just got bad. I ended up doing a thick black stripe for now, and maybe eventually I'll do a small white sword in it. It was a bit depressing... I tried, at least!

Lastly, I want to touch up on something Fritz brought up here. It's about the chance of allies in the new codex and in particular, Space Marine allies. With all the different Chapter codices around, there are just a plethora of different rules for very similar units. Grey Hunters and standard Tactical Marines? Heck, even Dark Angel Tacticals and Standard Tacticals? Black Templars, too, create a bit of differences here and there. In the old Grey Knights codex, Daemonhunters picked from only the Codex: Space Marines army book and even if you were using Blood Angel Terminators, they played as "Ultramarines".

Now, as Fritz said, perhaps Grey Knights may be keep allies, contrary to popular beliefs, and will be able to pick and choose from all of the Space Marine books for their allies. It is a bit comparative to Deathwatch, but probably not squads consisting of different chapters but one army doing so, with squads representing a single chapter. This could be very cool and interesting, and I know a lot of Daemonhunters would be happy to see Sanguinary Priests leading them into battle and Thunderwolf Cavarly charging into the front lines. But would it make sense? I'll admit it, the idea is kind of cool and flavorful if done correctly, but pulling the best from each codex could be outright bad and the new "netlist wireframe" (Double-Lash Obliterators, Razorback/Long Fangs, etc.). Plus, it doesn't make sense for Sanguinary Priests to do anything for non-Blood Angels and nor is it likely Space Wolves would send their beloved wolves into battle under the Inquisition, who they have shaky ties with.

It is possible that the GW updates with FAQs are linked to the Grey Knights, but it could be coincidental, where GW is trying to increase their sales on older units. It is possible GW will limit the abilities for Grey Knights to take the specialist units of each codex and only take listed units, like the current codex. It will be interesting to see what happens.

What do you all think? Do you want to see this happen? If it did, would you use it? Or (probably like me) would you shrug at it and focus mostly on the Grey Knights, the holy warriors of Chapter 666? Drop a comment, if you would. I would like to this to be a bit of a poll, not formal with bars and percentages, but just voiced out. Of course, you can feel free to comment on the recent rumors or my recently painted Terminator, and please do so. I'll try to get a good number of posts up as we march through February. Okay, bad pun, but I will try to get more posts up this month than I did in January, that is for certain.

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Wow that holocaust ability sounds extremely nasty and in my opinion its much better than the old one. The ability to wound everything with a 4+ will be very good, especially vs tyranids. I really love does models and you did a great job painting it. Now we just need to see the last bit done. By the way, have you thought about bases?

I have. I definitely want to do a snowy-rocky base theme once I finish all of my models up, which at this rate will be in 2030. I know a lot of people recommend basing before painting, but to me I'd rather have a fully painted but not based army over a partially painted based army. Either way, it's going to take me a while to finish up.

Whether or not the power mentioned is Holocaust or a specific squad upgrade or ability remains to be seen, but it definitely looks and feels like Holocaust, so I guess we'll just wait and see.

I myself base after i finish painting my models. For me its just so much easier painting the bases how i like with drybrushing and all without the model. Snow theme sounds really cool and remember, its not how fast your painting the models, its just to paint a little once in a while and after some time you will have a painted army and once that happens... it will be glorious!

Huh, it never crossed my mind about the new Holocaust sounding like those two abilities, but it definitely does! Good catch.

Rasmus, that is very true. I'm hoping by the time I finish my army, I will be ready to start fixing up the units that don't look as nice as I had hoped, and continuing to do so until I have an army I'm truly proud of. Not only will it keep me busy and entertained, but it will keep my practice up so I may eventually become a good painter.